Josef Albers was born on 19 March 1888 in Bottrop, Germany. Following apprenticeship and work as a teacher in Büren, in 1913 he began studying at the Royal School of Art in Berlin, the Arts and Crafts School in Essen and the Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin. In 1920, he moved to the Bauhaus in Weimar to continue his studies. During his time there, he created the so-called Scherbenbilder (shard pictures), for which he searched for old bottles on rubbish dumps and assembled them into coloured mosaics.
(...) Continue readingIn 1923, Albers received a teaching appointment at the Bauhaus in Weimar where he studied with Johannes Itten, the founder of colour field theory. There he led the workshop for glass painting in which he encouraged his students to intensively question the working material. In 1930, three years before its closure, he was appointed deputy director of the Bauhaus.
‘Homage to the Square’ – probably the most famous series by Josef Albers
The effect of colour, form, line and surface on the optical perception occupied Albers throughout his artistic career. Bearing witness to this is his well-known series ‘Homage to the Square’ – consisting of three or four coloured nested squares, each applied with the so-called ‘anstreichmethode’ (painting method). The unmixed coloured squares demonstrate that the effect of the colouring on the viewer is always dependent on the surrounding space. Together with Victor Vasarely and others, he is one of the founders of Op Art and is counted amongst the representatives of Hard Edge.
Before the Second World War – Josef Albers in the USA
Under pressure from the National Socialists, Albers and his wife Anni emigrated to the USA in 1933 (he took American citizenship as early as 1939), and taught at Black Mountain College in North Carolina until 1949, holding courses in ‘visual training’. His most famous students included Robert Rauschenberg as well as Kenneth Noland and Donald Judd. During his time in the USA, Albers collected noteworthy references – from 1950 he was the chairman of the Art Department at Yale University in New Haven/Connecticut, and a guest lecturer at Harvard, Hartford, Havana, and Santiago de Chile. It was also during this time that he developed his series-principle.
In 1968, on his 80th birthday, Albers achieved even greater fame in Germany. The native Westphalian was awarded an honorary doctorate and an Albers’ retrospective was shown at the Landesmuseum Münster, whilst documenta in Kassel cleared an entire hall for the exhibition of his works.
Josef Albers died on 25 March 1976 in New Haven, Connecticut. The Josef Albers Museum in Quadrat Bottrop was established in 1983 and houses a large part of the artist’s estate.
Josef Albers - Works that have already been sold at Kunsthaus Lempertz:
